Monday

Late Wednesday morning a reporter asked 22-year-old Ryan Berardino where he’d like to be in his life in about five years.

“Hopefully,” he answered, “in professional baseball.”

Around 5 p.m., same day, Berardino took his brother Darren, 15, to King’s Corner Barbershop in Sudbury.

Ryan sat and waited.

He was getting texts from friends claiming he’d been drafted by the Boston Red Sox. “I laughed. I thought it was crazy,” said the former Lincoln-Sudbury and current Bentley University standout.

He called his dad, Rick, just to see if he’d heard anything. “He said ‘Your friends are just messin’ with you.’” But the texts from friends kept coming. Ryan had to be sure. He went to Draft Tracker, Twitter and the MLB Draft website, searching for his name.

There it was: Ryan Berardino, 34th-round pick of the Red Sox.

The next day, as he drove south to join the Falmouth Commodores of the Cape Cod League, Ryan was pinching himself.

“It still hasn’t sunk in,” he said.

Berardino’s journey to this point has been sweet and arduous, bright and crushing. He played baseball and football at Lincoln-Sudbury, suffered a back injury that put him in a body cast for nine months – “23 hours a day, it was terrible” – suffered a concussion his freshman season at Bentley and still has managed to make the All-Northeast 10 team in his three seasons at Bentley (he just finished his junior year).

He’s had broken wrists, a broken ankle, and labrum surgery. Hamstring pulls and hip pointer injuries. Yet the 5-foot-10, 210 first baseman just finished a solid season hitting .296.

Growing up in Sudbury, Berardino would watch L-S’s powerhouse baseball teams coached by Kirk Fredericks. He couldn’t wait to be one of them.

“My goal freshman year was to make varsity,” said Berardino. He did, and turned in a promising first year. “That gave me confidence for the next year.”

He started his sophomore year with the JVs. Soon he was called up to varsity. One night, he checked the lineup card and saw he was hitting cleanup against Waltham. “I went 0-4, but hit the ball hard.”

It would become a trend.

This will be his first year playing in the Cape Cod League. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. Previous summers were spent playing for the New England Ruffnecks and the Nashua Silver Knights. “I faced some pretty good arms.”

If there’s one thing Berardino has realized forever, it’s this: “I always knew I was in a baseball family.” One of his grandfathers is Dwight Evans, the brilliant Red Sox outfielder who is in the team’s Hall of Fame. His other grandfather is Dick Berardino who made it to Triple-A with the Yankees organization, managed in the minor leagues and has been with the Red Sox as a coach and consultant for many years.

“I talk hitting with my grandfathers all the time,” Ryan said. “(Evans) taught me to be disciplined with the head when I’m at-bat. I focus on hitting line drives.” Gramps Berardino lives within walking distance of the Bentley campus in Waltham and doesn’t miss any of Ryan’s games. “I’ve learned about base running from him,” Ryan said. “If I make a bad mistake, I’ll hear about it.”

Sadly, both grandfathers suffered losses recently.

Berardino’s wife passed away and Evans’s son succumbed to a genetic disorder. The sadness cut Ryan deeply. “I’d never lost people close to me,” he said.

“With the wakes and funerals, and the baseball season just starting, Ryan was a little distracted. He had a lot on his plate,” his dad said.